You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(28)

“Hey, Angus,” you coo. “Do you want some chocolate, hon?”

Hon and he falls under your spell, and drops the gun (junkies do like their sweets) and you dig into that messenger bag and peel the foil off the mints, the Andes. Uncle Andy. Andy.

I catch my breath. I try not to puke. Useless juvenile delinquent. Liar. Felon?

Angus eats his chocolate, and blubbers and mutters that we don’t understand, and you sit by him, not me.

“How’s that taste, hon?” You put a hand on his knee. I want your hand on my knee and he says it’s good and you give him another and I’ve never been smaller in my whole fucking life. Angus eats your chocolate, the chocolate meant for me, and you pat his knee (don’t touch him, you’re killing me) and he shakes his greasy head.

“You do not play Peter Frampton after dark.”

“Amen,” you say, and how do you know how to work him? I come here every week, and I still freeze up when he pisses me off. Not you. You met him at gunpoint, but you’re bonding with him over some record store I never even heard of and how? Do you like him more than me? Are you over me already? I would be over me. I wrecked it. I lied to you. Did I kill it?

You slap your thighs (no), and I was gonna do that, Vail. I was gonna slap your thighs. Love them. Touch them. Squeeze them. Angus says you can go meet your friend and you put on your boots. The end is nigh, the dream is over, and I’ve never felt quite so young and dumb.

I catch your eye. I’m sorry.

You wink at me, and I don’t know what that means. What’s a wink? Is there hope?

“All right,” he says. “I’m bored.”

He’s on his feet and we’re on the move, following him down the hall to the elevator and maybe there’s a chance. A way out of this for us because we are getting out now and that means we lived. I owe you my life, and I squeeze your hand and thank you. You chuckle and roll your eyes like it was nothing, and the earth splits open. An abyss that is the difference between us. You are older than I am, Vail. In this moment you know it. I know it. You’ve been places. You’ve seen shit. But you’re still with me, walking by my side as Angus swerves off and kicks at Raymond Carver. I’ve read about this kinda stuff. Trauma bonds. We’ve been through something together, our own little September 11, and okay, you saved my ass. In an ideal world, I would’ve saved yours, but maybe that makes me seem like a feminist or something.

My fun, fucked-up not-an-uncle hits the elevator button and the door opens fast. Schwing. I wave you in and you’re in the clear, and I’m on my way to join you and stay up all night talking about our crazy families and fucking our brains out the way we wanted to, but nope.

Angus slings his arm around my back. “Boys’ night. Someone needs a spanking.”

You wave goodbye to him, and he flips you the bird and I’m stuck. Invisible. Owned. And it hurts. The light agrees with you in the elevator (all light agrees with you), and the worst is when you take one last look at me and see it all. My impotence. My youth. You adjust your messenger bag like a doctor who made a house call, like a mother leaving her terrible sons alone to trash the house.

And then the doors close and Angus lets out a fart from the southernmost bowels of the gates of fucking hell.

“All right,” he says. “Daddy needs a Heinie.”





11


Angus’s Heinie…is crowding my icebox, and I wonder if I’ll ever see Mooney again, or my dad, the real one who doesn’t know where I live. I am lost. You are lost. Out in the night alone. You thought you’d be watching your sitcom with your hot new boyfriend, but I fucked up, royally, and Angus digs a couple of Heinies out of the TV stand. He opens one of the bottles with his teeth and spits the cap on the floor. I won’t give up on us. You’re gone to God knows where and the thing with feathers is dying, but it ain’t dead yet. There is hope.

You winked.

I hold on to my Nokia, the actual lifeboat, my only connection to you. “I should probably check on Vail.”

“Why? She’s a big girl…. Actually, no, she’s pretty short.”

THE WORD IS PETITE, YOU FUCKWAD, and he pours cocaine on the jewel case and sighs. “Did I ever tell you about my ex? Kelly Damon. Demon. Now she was something…. Dead ringer for Carolyn Bessette.”

No time for this shit. It’s my turn to save you. But Angus is getting higher by the second, replacing the Frampton CD with Purple Rain. He kicks at invisible Kelly Demons and I could make a run for it, but I can’t do that because of his fucking gun. I need to keep my job at Mooney’s. I need to get my own fucking apartment, my own fucking butter and leather.

On this goes for what feels like hours, Angus retelling his self-aggrandizing fake fucking tragedy while I sit in a wingback chair pretending to sip my Heinie that isn’t even open. I have to call you. I need to know you’re safe and I need to hear your voice before you tell Cynthia about this fiasco or some nightcrawler sinks his teeth into your skin and tears off your tights. Mine.

“Jacob,” he snaps.

What choice do I have? I answer. “What’s up, Angus?”

He tosses a first edition of Beloved into the fireplace. That’s Toni Fucking Morrison and could I steal the gun and kill him? No. I can’t even kill the mice that sneak into the fucking shop. I squirm. I suck. Will I ever feel your lips again?